An empty subway

Are you inspired to join the army/navy/airforce?
An empty subway! Rare indeed!

My first time at Settler's Cafe

The cow dung game! Nothing much to say except you have to play it yourself and find yourself loving it very much.
There's my hand [with my purple nails!]. The objective was to find pictures either first or within a time limit of 1.5 min. Cool? Cool! We had a lot of screaming in this one.
That's us holding up a completed picture of Blokus. Jake and Andrina won, their colour being red. I was paired up with Dan for the second round and we won second. Great game!

The Zone 3B leaders were at Settler's cafe in katong on Boxing Day. We stayed 4 hours there playing 3 board games. It was a fabulous time and I honestly think that thru' the games, we got more geled. A lot of screaming, especially in the 'cow dung' game and in Photohunt. The last game was Blokus, which is a game of squares and shapes and strategies. It was a much serious game and whenever each pair [we teamed up in pairs] took a lot of time deciding over petty positions, the rest got frustrated. But it was fun!

Little Jay

Meet Little Jayden, who is my cousin from my dad's side. He's 4 years old and he played the violin for us at his house when his family hosted a Christmas party for us. The above is a picture of him in his cute wee suit that includes an adorable red bow tie.

EMPLOYED!

I'm employed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll start work as an A-maths teacher in Bedok North Sec on 7 Jan. This is an prayer answered so right and more by God. All glory to HIM!!!

Meanwhile, I shall go plan my HK trip. :):)

Called to be peacemakers

Jo: As in. you know. I'm gay.
Me: Huh? What do you mean?
[i know, i sound like an idiot here]
Me: Why you choose to be gay?
Jo: WHoa nelly. You don't choose to be gay, you are gay. Like how you're a girl and I'm a boy.
Me: No, it is a choice.
Jo: If it were truly a choice, why would i choose to be gay? hey, it's not easy being gay in Singapore.

From here, we went into a long argument on homosexuality.
My stand: The Bible clearly states that homosexuality is an abomination in God's eyes and since I'm Christian and I also take the Bible to be totally inerrant, homosexuality is thus wrong.

Jo: Are you shocked?
Me: I never knew. Well, you know me, I'm Christian.
Jo: If you don't wanna talk to me anymore, it's fine. I'll just go over to a corner and cry. [or something like that was said]

Well, this part was the hard part. The above conversation took place over MSN. It was hard for me and personally sad as well. I just came from surfing Facebok and viewed an online argument via posts over homosexuality.
Questions raised: Should religion be involved? There are Christians who are gays as well right? The Bible's wrong? Being gay, a crime?

It's getting heart-wrenching as we face a growing group of atheists and agnostics who are incredibly intelligent as well as articulate. They seemingly break down our every argument, tearing each word apart only to stand over us and say, "What have you got to say now?" Do we, as children of God, hide and cower and be quiet? Would we make clear and strong our stand?

It's important, therefore, to remember in all that we do, we hide behind the cross of Jesus. He goes before us and conquers. In the book of Joshua in the Bible, chapter 1, the Lord told Joshua to be strong and courageous 3 times. Likewise, let us not be faint-hearted in the face of growing controversial ideas. At the same time, we are reminded by Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to be peacemakers and gentle.

Leader Retreat '07

Leaders' Retreat was fantastic. God has been so good to us, granting us a safe journey and renewing our energy for 2008. Ps John Partington had many timely messages for us. It would be easy to forget them too because all too often, we go to listen but not practise.

But one of the most colourful aspects of the trip was going to KL with my family. I was surprised to see KL modern and extremely fashionable, a far cry from Melacca. Bukit Pintang, the Orchard Road of KL, was large and filled with malls. One of the malls was called Times Square [so New York!] and inside it featured an indoor theme park! I saw it and got blown away. It looked Lego-ish for some reason. haha.

Then we went Suria KLCC, it's like Vivocity but bigger! Got my manicure and pedicure there... guess what colour i chose?HAHA, purple! I usually take red, but i thought I'd do something different this time.

All in all, I ENJOYED every iota of the moment. It was Fair Havens indeed. But back to real world... He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world.

Medge:the emo house

We had a stayover at Joel's emo condo on Tuesday night. This condo is weird, situated 20-min on foot from Novena MRT, it's only a block with a swimming pool that people would mistake for a fountain. BUT it's a nice apartment without furniture. Because we went there late at night, we could all view the beautiful night scene of city but it can't be captured on cam though.

Though many people came for the evening for like only 2 hours, most went back, leaving 4 of us only, which brings to question why they came all the way at all. We played bridge[at this point, i'm a teeny weeny sick of bridge, but it's still a great game!], one game of scrabble party version[this game is so cool, it's un-traditonal and has a wicked timer], Seven and one incomplete round of Monopoly. You would not believe how sophisticated board games are these days. For monopoly, instead of notes, cards are used! There's this calculator-look alike that registers the amount needed to add or subtract to a player's card.

We got really beat by 3am, so the 2 other guys went off to sleep in the other rooms. Kudos to Bethel for raising great gentlemen, they let us have one giant pillow and the thin mattress. So with my sleeping bag as a blanket, Abbie and I had a comfortable time. But we talked for like another 45 mins on TYPICAL girls' stuff. The guys slept on cold hard floor. POOR THINGS! JOEL, get some furniture!

Nevertheless, stayovers are damaging. They steal your beauty and upset your biological clock. Maybe that explains why I'm blogging at this hour!

p6 camp

The P6 camp was cool, the kids were a lot more well-behaved than I expected. While I generally dun like to handle children of the upper primary age, I should have given Cecilia more credit that after one year with her, the P6s would be more thoughtful and mature. [or maybe, kids do mature faster these days..] Before I went for the camp, I wrestled with my internal conflicts about P6 camp. I've always dreaded this camp, cos firstly, i dun like camps and 2ndly, i dun like kids. But I really prayed about it and asked God to help me go with an open mind. It turned out that what transpired was more that I could ever have expected.

To say that my leadership has matured, albeit a little, is an understatement. As i looked at the kids, i felt a pang as i realised I haven't been childish for quite a while and still get away with it!

About P6 camp, the coolest programme was the sandcastle building activity. I only came halfway, cos I had choir prac, which btw was REALLY MUCH BETTER THAN BEFORE. You will see from the pictures that the sandcastles built are really like sandcastles! Cute huh? For the castles not to crumble, water and pressure must be added. Anyway, of course, the whole activity had a lot of spiritual and practical lessons to draw from. In the middle of sandcastle building, [there were 6 sandcastles], we were told by the instructor to swop castles and complete another group's sandcastle. We were devastated, of course. All our hardwork and effort would now be nullified as we handed our castle to another. And it was hard to complete someone else's castle. Anyway, it was just so fun.

Thanks to Regina and her team for giving me a wonderful weekend. And to Cecilia and her p6 ministry for giving unto the Lord all these years. :)

shing-shing vocabulary

Shing-shing is the sound of two knifes grinding each other so that both may be sharpen. SO shing-shing vocab is sharpen your vocabulary. I got the next list of words from the latest issue of TIME mag, of which I'm an avid reader. See how many you know, btw, i knew none of them.

Above-the-fray, progeny, pariah, caucuses, mulatto, malaise, graft, sedition, sodomy, de facto, plaudits, bedevil, albeit, parochial, tinseled, pantheon, mirthful, solipsistic.

SHING-SHING... SHING-SHING...
[p.s. I got this phrase from a friend who is from VS. whenever his group of friends and him see a cute girl on the streets, the code word is shing-shing. It means, 'let's eat!']

ALL-BRIDGE afternoon

My 3 girlfriends and I played bridge for several hours yesterday. To say it was exhilarating is an understatement. It's a pity that everyone, with the exception of me of course, was less sharp than usual. There were the craziest blunders made, so I usually got confused who's my partner and stuff. Towards the end, I taught them this game I learned from my classmates called 7. The actual name my classmate gave it is more vulgar, so I'll just simplify it. IT WAS SOOOO FUN. Who says only mahjong is fun? [for which i have no idea how to play]

Life after A levels is THE BEST. [say it in the Gurmit Singh style, if you're familiar with 80's Rewind!]

Scholarships

I've just submitted two scholarship applications. To MAS and CAAS. It's been tiring to fill out the online applications, especially the questionaires. It wasn't easy trying to be as honest and true to myself and yet sell myself at the same time. There's this paragraph I wrote in the personal statement to MAS which I like, haha, but i can't put it here in case anyone steals my lines. Somehow through it all, [i took a few days to complete], I felt God's presence with me. The sense of peace and joy are not coincidental, and i feel that even if I'm not even waitlisted, God has a future and a plan for me.

I came across Deut 12:12 this morning during bible reading. Then I read EDWJ [Everyday with Jesus]. And when I combine the two together, this is what I've learnt:

God requires MUCH from us! Our heart, soul and mind, which is just about everything I own. He leaves you none of your storage space so that i can keep what i want. It seems that the God we serve is demanding and when Christians have such a view, of course, we get tired. DUh, it's like having a split personality! BUT, what we truly lack is the revelation of how much GOd loves us. The bible says that we cannot know the width, height and depth of His all-powerful love. But if we would have just but a glimpse, we would find that all that we have to give is not even enough.